tronvillain

Miss Scarlet:
The reason you don't see many couples saying that is that since most people do not base their decisions on what is "good for the species" it simply does not follow follow from "neither of us is really very bright" that "we shouldn't breed." People would not pick things of a menu to "enhance our species" but simply to have the children they want!

Ah, but genetic engineering would make what you call "wise choices" easier. Some people simply want children enough that they are willing to risk them having a disease, and genetic engineering could eliminate that risk. Where exactly is the problem? I just don't see what you're basing your argument on here.

mibby529

Cane toads are the classic example of this. (A species with no natural enemies that produces 40,000 offspring per female introduced into a new environment. Yeah, THAT'S good ecology.)

Also, eugenics is inherently racial. It was at the core of Nazi ideology. And the IHS (Indian Health Services) used reservations as eugenics experiments. I know some aborigines who can talk about similar Australian practices. And so forth.

It's one of the oldest ethic dilemmas in history: Do you commit one of the most atrocious acts known to humanity, if it means an end to suffering in the long run? Can a few really know what's best for the masses? (And before you answer that, let me remind you that "The government can solve all our problems" experiments such as the Great Society have failed.)

tronvillain

Who is proposing eugenics? As far as I am aware, no one has suggested that genetic engineering be forced upon people.

mibby529

Well, in my experience, it HAS been forced. There have even been attempts to copyright native genes.

Then there's genetic discrimination. What about those of us who aren't engineered?

Not to mention that cloning will probably be used to produce perfect replicas of organs to transplant, and that means raising a human being just for his lungs or heart. This could be construed as cannibalism.

It's foolish to assume all ethical delimmas are religious in nature. Unfortunately, a lot of the talk about genetic engineering the media reports on focuses on the religious implications, such as if clones have souls. The implication is of course associating atheism with Nazism. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

tronvillain

mibby529:
Humans have never been genetically engineered, let alone forcibly, so apparently you do not recall your experiences clearly. As for those attempts you mention, is difficult to see how copyrighting a gene found in nature could be defended. I can see copyrighting information such as a gene sequence from your own experiment, but there would be nothing to stop someone from performing their own experiment or going to another source to obtain the sequence.

I imagine it will be quite similar to the "discrimination" against the less genetically endowed now, though perhaps more precise about less visible conditions. People often bring up Gattaca at this point, but you know what? He didn't deserve to be on that mission.

Cloning is an entirely different issue from genetic engineering, and in any case no one is proposing that whole humans be grown for organs.

echidna

I forget the movie. Did he have a heart murmur or something? Why not ?

Ales

There is an "intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally altering the human condition through applied reason especially by using technology" including genetic engineering.

<a href="http://www.transhumanism.org/" target="_blank">http://www.transhumanism.org/</a>

tronvillain

echidna:
Yes, he had an extremely high chance of heart failure.

mibby529

We've never been genetically engineered, yes, but there have been attempts to copyright native genes. They thought we were going to die out and wanted to clone us. This was in the 90s. (Gee, you would've thought such racist attitudes had been wiped out.)

tronvillain

As I said, the copyrighting of a gene sequence is defensible if someone else can go do an experiment and get their own version of the gene sequence. If such an experiment was impossible, then a company would control the rights to the sequence until its copyright expired.